


Sick Day

by Kavi Leighanna (kleighanna)



Series: Avery'verse [3]
Category: Rookie Blue
Genre: F/M, Family, tumblr prompt fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 03:53:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1454413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kleighanna/pseuds/Kavi%20Leighanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Avery's sick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sick Day

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr Prompt:  
> A request for when you have time or are doing a meme: more McSwarek pleaaaase? Maybe Avery gets sick? I'm a sucker for Sam worried sick (ha!) about his kids.

Sam Swarek finds nothing anywhere near as terrifying as getting a call from his daughter’s school. He could deal with getting a call about Andy (he’s come to terms with that ages ago, because he really hadn’t had a choice), but when the secretary of Avery’s school calls Sam literally drops everything he’s doing. Traci has this little smirk on her face, but Sam actually could not care less.

There’s something wrong with his daughter. They could be mid-negotiation in a stand-off situation and he would walk away. He does everything for his firstborn and he isn’t ashamed to admit it.

The secretary is calm as he races into the office, his gun still on his hip. (He’s usually much more careful about guns around the kids. It’s an agreement he and Andy have about violence and their children and that extends to the school. They already have all the permit stuff and the school knows both he and Andy are cops, but they don’t really like to tempt fate.)

“I’m here for Avery Swarek,” he says. “Is she okay?”

“This way, Detective,” the woman says. He knows her name, really he does, because this is his kid and okay, he may have checked out everyone before Avery hit first grade. (Andy doesn’t know and he has no intention of telling her.)

His little girl is curled in a ball on a plastic futon. She looks so small and his heart almost breaks. “Ave?”

“Daddy?”

“Hi Princess,” he says quietly, sliding onto the thing. Can’t they find anything better? They should have something more comfortable for sick kids like this.

“I throwed up.”

“Yeah.” They’d told him that. She’d been fine that morning. Maybe a little slower than usual, but that happens sometimes. They should have known, he and Andy. Katie’d picked something up from kindergarten last week. “You want to go home?”

“Yeah, Daddy. I want to go home.”

She sounds so tearful, so sad, and he has no qualms wrapping her up in his arms, shifting her until she’s got her head pillowed on his shoulder. The secretary looks up as he brings Avery out of the nurse’s office (which has never made sense to him, because since when do these damn schools actually employ nurses. Though okay, he can’t argue, since it gave Avery a dark, quiet place to rest.)

“You just need to sign her out,” he says quietly, tapping the binder that’s already open. Sam does, scrawls what might be his signature on the page.

“Feel better, sweetheart,” the secretary says as Sam takes Avery out of the school.

It’s easy to get Avery in the car. She’s super cooperative, even sick, and he gets her into the booster without issues. She curls her head against the seat as best she can and Sam wishes he didn’t have to drive.

“Ave, I don’t think we have any popsicles at home, you feel up to stopping at the store?”

It takes her a minute, probably both for her to get her brain online and for her to make the decision. “Five minutes, Daddy?”

“Yeah, baby,” he says. “Five minutes.”

It’s more like ten (they don’t have anymore kids’ Tylenol left either and he picks up some Gatorade. It’s not what they’d prefer the kids to drink, they’re usually careful of the sugar intake, but Avery hates the kids’ stuff and all he cares about is getting her to drink.), but Avery actually just curls quietly against Sam’s shoulder. It’s awkward, but he makes it work, because this isn’t Avery. Avery is bouncing, dancing, demanding and opinionated. But here, she’s lethargic and quiet.

“Daddy,” she moans as he carries her to the car again.

“I know,” he soothes, manages to loop the handle of the plastic bag around his wrist so he can rub her bad. She whines and he sighs. The aches are settling in, apparently.

The drive home is silent, Avery fading in and out. He hasn’t brought anything home with him (he’d left in that much of a hurry, he’ll have to ask Andy to pick up his things) so it’s easy to heft Avery in his arms and still get the groceries. He bypasses the living room and Avery’s room.

“Daddy?”

“It’s you and me, Princess, so we’ll hang out in the big bed.”

She sighs and tightens her arms around his neck as best she can. He chuckles and kisses her head. “Alright, sickie. I’ll go get your PJs and the bucket.”

It takes some maneuvering to get her into her PJs, and it takes him even more effort to get the Tylenol in her.

(Avery won’t eat the chewables, he has to grind them up into a spoon of jam to get her to take them. They have a killer story of trying to get her to take them when she’d been a toddler and she’d spit them out. They hadn’t found out until about the third day into her flu when Andy had gone to change her sheets and found a half-chewed pill under her bed.

And if that’s not enough, she hates most of the kids’ drinkables too. She’s picky when it comes to her medicine, and he can’t blame her. He vividly remembers the horror of banana medicine when he’d picked up strep throat as a teen.)

“Okay, sweetheart,” he says, after they’re all set up. “What are we watching?”

Her eyes flutter open, fever bright. “The Doctor, Daddy,” she says.

(It’s a new show to them, but Avery’s made a new friend who’s just moved to Toronto from England. Lea’s a sweetheart, and had invited Andy to her sleepover birthday three weeks ago. It’s a show Sam can actually get behind. There’s enough action and intricate plot that he’s not bored and it has the lessons that Andy’s somehow decided needs to be in the minimal television their kids watch.)

As he settles on the bed, Avery shuffles over and curls up against him. He wraps her up as tight as she can stand and hits play.

It’s how a very worried Andy finds them hours later, shaking Sam awake as gently as she can so she doesn’t also wake Avery.

“You didn’t call,” she accuses.

He blinks. He doesn’t sleep in the middle of the day so he’s a little out of it. “Shit. Sorry.”

“Language.” But she runs a hand through his hair. “I stopped at the store for soup. We’re super stocked on Tylenol and I picked up a new jar of jam.” There’s a pause, then she says, “You’re going to catch it, you know.”

“Not so bad if you’ll play my nurse.”

She snorts, but there’s so much affection in her eyes as she stares down at them. “In your dreams, Swarek.”

He chuckles and unfortunately it’s enough to jostle Avery.

“Daddy,” she whines.

He kisses her head. “Sorry, Princess.”

But Andy takes advantage and shuffles around the bed until she can settle beside her oldest. “Hey Ave.”

“Mama.”

“How are you feeling.”

“Ouch.”

They both laugh.

“How about some soup, huh? Chicken noodle.”

“With the dinos?”

“Yeah,” Andy agrees, stroking her daughter’s hair back. “Dinos.”

“Okay. I’ll call Daddy down to get it, okay? Bumps is bringing Katie and Danny home soon.”

“Kay, Mama.”

Except that’s not how it happens. They decide to keep Katie and Danny at Andy’s dad’s place (contagion) and they both curl up around her daughter. It’s a bit old school, and someone’s going to have to change the sheets tomorrow, but it’s a small price to pay when Avery’s sick.


End file.
